1st March 2020 - 50 Years of Women's Liberation: Exhibition and Special Meeting of FLA
Today three FiLiA volunteers went along to the ‘50 years of Women’s Liberation’ exhibition curated by Minna Haukka, artist in residence at the Feminist Library and Roberta Hunter-Henderson. The exhibition was glorious! The creativity and passion of the posters; calls to revolution, marches, meetings … soaking up our recent history whilst surrounded by some of the amazing Women who made it happen!
The day started with a showing of Sue Crockford’s film ‘A Woman’s Place’ about the Oxford Women’s Liberation conference in 1970 and the 1971 Women’s Liberation March. We then watched Sue’s film ‘One, Two, Three’ made with Margaret Dickinson about an initiative which led to the creation of a house filled with laughter that offered free childcare in Camden. The freedom given to the children, and the collective way in which the centre was run seems to me to offer an antidote to the usual childcare provision and offered a far better way of raising kids than I’ve seen before. Here’s a link to an interview with Sue in the Sisterhood and After oral history collection (a link to bookmark and return to many times over as its full of interviews with Feminists who were at the forefront of the Women’s Liberation Movement).
We then heard presentations from Women representing three different archives. Barbara Winslow spoke about the Shirley Chisolm Project. I hadn’t heard of Shirley Chisolm, but discovered that she is ‘best-known for her election as the first Black woman to the House of Representatives in 1968, and for her groundbreaking campaign for the presidency which she launched in 1972’. I wonder how many other Women we all have yet to find out about. Bec Wonders then gave a talk on the Vancouver Women’s Library - something that it is well worth learning more of, and finally Melba Wilson took us all on a verbal tour of the Black Cultural Archives (here’s a link to the subject guide on one of the collections; The Black Women’s Movement).
FLA members from around the country then gave brief comments on the various archives focusing on Women. I had no idea there were so many, and have put a list of some of the ones we heard about today below with links so that you can explore them yourselves.
We all have to keep a record of our work - as someone mentioned today ‘nobody else will’. It’s our story, and it’s important. I wondered about FiLiA and what it will feel like in the future to gather together and remember. I’d best finish writing and try to organise our information into some sort of order! I’ll write about the Women’s Liberation at 50 Conference tomorrow.
By LM
